Spiderling

Use your webs to swing through a gorgeous subterranean world in this clever puzzle platformer. Though a few of the puzzles are quite tricky, the game is forgiving and has many checkpoints. The striking visuals and ethereal soundtrack truly make this a work of art.

13 Comments

Unfortunately it is unplayable with a non-US keyboard since jump is mapped to "Z". I can not even pass the second "jump" tutorial screen because I can not switch between pressing X and Z fast enough without getting a knot in my fingers :-(

Casparne: I'm sorry that the game is unplayable for you! Such is the drawback for games which do not allow for key re-mapping. :(

jcfclark: There are definitely some tough puzzles here which require you to think outside of the box. Luckily, the developer has provided a video walkthrough here. If you'd rather not sit through it, you can ask specific questions here and I'd be happy to offer hints!

I really enjoyed this game. The character graphics were unique, the music was cute but not annoying, and the learning curve on the controls was well paced.

I found three things, though, that made this game less of a memorable experience than it could have been:

1. The story was pretty bland. I was actually surprised at this, given the quality of the aspects mentioned above.

2. The direction you were supposed to head in was unclear. Not such a big deal if you can double-back. But in this case, it was possible to cut yourself off from being able to double-back. This meant that I had to start the whole thing over a couple times.

3. There was no option to skip the cutscenes. I understand that the wording was paced to convey the tempo of the characters' speech, but it hugely decreases the replay value.

This game has a few bits of negative possibility space, and the biggest one is the secret treasure things. They are there, you can collect all 6 of them in a single run, and your reward for doing so? Getting to see all 6 of them. That's it. Kinda disappointed by that one.

That, mixed with the control issues mentioned above, kinda gives the impression that this is a game with well-polished visuals and gameplay that might have really benefited from a bit more polish in other aspects of the game as well. A good game with the potential to have been better.

Also, in regards to the QWERTY bias in games: have you considered something to the effect of buying a controller that has mappable buttons? It's not exactly the optimum solution, but you could have a control mapping that would allow you to play games that lack the control scheme options you would otherwise need. An example would be a classic x-box controller and x-padder.

Thanks JoelyBean, the walkthrough helped. As Montante said, I got stuck by taking the wrong road and had it not been for the help, I'd probably still be wandering around the cave. Excellent atmosphere and graphics; the mechanics took me a bit longer than usual to use effectively.

About the keyboard layout issue: while I agree that game designers should think more about the fact that not everyone uses the same keyboard layout, also remember that every OS available these days has switchable keyboard layouts! You can set your OS to a US keyboard to play the game, then back to whatever you'd been using. Check your OS's documentation for how to do this. No need to spend money on additional hardware or software.

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